UC, a top recipient of federal research funding, is concerned about Trump pause on grant reviews
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- University of California leaders are raising concerns about a temporary Trump administration pause on research grant reviews.
- UC is the nation’s top higher education recipient of federal research funding.
- A prolonged pause could bring important work to a halt.
Leaders of the University of California, the nation’s top higher education recipient of federal research funding, are raising questions and voicing concerns about the ramifications of a temporary Trump administration pause on research grant reviews announced this week.
The administration abruptly canceled some National Institutes of Health study sessions and advisory council meetings, where scientific experts gather to assess grant proposals before funding recommendations are finalized. The NIH is the largest funder of UC federal research, providing $2.6 billion in 2023-24 — 62% of the university’s federal awards that year.
The federal funds power UC’s vast research enterprise involving more than 10,000 grants addressing infectious disease, brain injury, vaccinations, Alzheimer’s and other scientific and medical fields.
UC leaders are trying to assess the impact of the grant review pause, which stemmed from orders to halt communications, travel and public activities by the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration.
It is standard practice for new presidential administrations to temporarily pause some agency operations while they review them; a Jan. 21 directive from the Department of Health and Human Services noted it was “consistent with precedent” and would last through Feb. 1.
Harold R. Collard, UC San Francisco vice chancellor for research, told his faculty he expected “a return to normal operations soon.”
“This is not unprecedented, and we believe it is intended to allow time for the new administration to position its leadership,” Collard wrote.
But should the pause by the world’s biggest funder of biomedical research continue weeks or months beyond Feb. 1, researchers fear it could bring potentially life-changing work to a halt.
A senior UC leader said the Trump actions have triggered anxieties across the university system’s 10 campuses, six academic medical centers and 20 health professional schools.
Researchers at UCLA, UC San Diego and UC Davis have confirmed receiving federal notices that grant reviews have been halted; one received a directive to “cease and desist,” sowing confusion over what part of the research project should be stopped, the UC official said. Research project leaders have asked whether they should halt their work and continue to pay their graduate students. Another researcher was in an online NIH study session this week when the meeting was abruptly ended with no explanation and the participants were locked out.
“There’s lots of anxieties out there,” the UC official told The Times. “My main message to everybody is that we must stay calm. We’re not making assumptions. We’re going to gather the facts.”
Christine Liu, a postdoctoral researcher in the UC San Francisco Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, whose salary is funded by the NIH, said her immediate work had not been affected by the pause. But she is concerned over future research opportunities as she prepares funding applications.
“We are all worried about our own funding and stability, but this is very concerning for long-term scientific progress,” said Liu, who studies mice as part of an effort to better understand schizophrenia and other brain issues. “Any small change in schedules can have a far-reaching impact on whether a drug can go on the market in a few years or whether people can get potentially life-saving surgeries or therapies that are in clinical trials.”
Christian Cazares, a postdoctoral cognitive science scholar at UC San Diego who researches autism, also receives NIH funding.
Federal agencies have been directed to compile a list of DEI offices and workers and develop a reduction-in-force plan against those federal workers.
Cazares said that while immediate pay and research did not appear in jeopardy, he was concerned about future work, especially as the Trump administration revokes diversity-, equity- and inclusion-related programs and has put federal workers in those areas on paid leave.
“I am currently funded. But the people who run the program that funds me are on paid leave. We have not heard at all from them about what will happen next year when the grant is supposed to be renewed,” Cazares said. “I do not know if the work I have will exist.
“The NIH communications pause feels like a part of a bigger shift and attack on sciences because there is a suspicion about our work or who is selected to do this when it is in fact very competitive and benefits society as a whole.”
At UC Davis, one researcher told The Times the U.S. Department of Agriculture had notified him last week his funding had been approved — only to hear this week that the funding was on hold.
A USDA email informed him that the “incoming administration has placed a moratorium on issuing any new grants.”
Other researchers said there had been no interruption to their USDA- or NIH-funded research, and they had not received communication from the agencies suggesting that there would be. But two meetings on bird flu with the CDC and USDA “were canceled last minute,” said one researcher, who had planned to attend.
The Trump directive is not only affecting UC researchers. Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education — which represents 1,600 universities and colleges — said many of his members were taken aback by the abruptness of the action. Dorothy Fink, Department of Health and Human Services acting secretary, announced the “immediate pause” Tuesday. Some researchers had already traveled to their meetings, only to find they had been canceled, a UC official said.
“They’re worried both about the abrupt nature of the shutdown and frankly worried that this is a sign of things to come,” Mitchell said. “I think that the campaign generated a lot of potentially harmful rhetoric about the politicization of education and research. So we’re anxious to see if that continues over into real policy.”
One USC scientist who serves on an NIH study section received word Wednesday that an orientation meeting for new reviewers scheduled for the next day had been canceled. The group’s chair told them to continue their work under the assumption that meetings will resume as scheduled after Feb. 1, he said.
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While it’s an inconvenient time to cancel meetings — the deadline for the first funding cycle of the year for several grant categories falls on Jan. 25 — a temporary pause on communications is manageable, the USC scientist said.
But if it stretches into weeks or months, it could present major challenges.
Without NIH money, “research labs shut down. University budgets get pinched,” the USC scientist said. “Grants pay not only for experiments, they pay for training. They pay for grad students. We’re training the next generation of scientists.”
John MacMillan, UC Santa Cruz vice chancellor of research, said that even if the pause is lifted on Feb. 1, rescheduling the meetings takes time and could delay funding decisions for at least two or three months. “Particularly for our younger scientists, pausing their work and the long-term effects of that can be pretty profound.”
“Life-changing research is the engine that drives innovation in the state of California and it heavily depends on federal research dollars,” he said.
Some researchers are also worried that the Trump administration will reduce or cut funding in areas that conflict with its political ideology. UC’s largest federal award last year was a $173-million grant to UC San Francisco for the California Immunization and Vaccines for Children Program — which could be a target for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for health secretary and an opponent of vaccines.
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But UC officials say university research draws wide bipartisan support. Indeed, an attempt by Trump to cut NIH funding by $1.2 billion in 2017 was rebuffed by the Republican-controlled Congress, which gave the agency a $2-billion increase.
In an email to the UC community, Christopher Harrington, UC associate vice president for federal governmental relations, said he was in close contact with members of the state’s congressional delegation — 54 members, including nine Republicans — “to ensure the impacts on the research community are properly communicated and fully understood by lawmakers.”
“We as a research leadership team at the University of California ... work with both sides of the aisle. And we have really rich conversations, and the audience is nonpartisan,” the senior UC leader said.
“We value the relationships we have on both sides of the aisle, because we all benefit advancing the work.”
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